Thief
by JonasGrant
Summary: "I am a thief, not a murderer, not a bandit, I do not kill. I am a thief, I hide in the shadows, I hide amongst others, it is the only armour I require. I am a thief, an artist, a professional like any other, I remain a member of society and must act accordingly. I am a thief, but you will never know it. I am a thief, anything can be mine." -Gail "Scribble" Cervantes
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: A novelisation of my first playthrough, with a few tweaks. I made a thief imperial who never killed anyone, always wore casual clothes and used voice of the emperor, paralysis/fear/frenzy poisons to get himself out of trouble... Never got around to finishing the main quest because of that hippie attitude, but it made for quite an interesting gameplay...**

The chains that bind us to our benches are rusted and heavy, the shackles dig in our ankles and our hands are calloused from rowing this fat bastard all the way from Elsweyr… And I swear somebody just soiled himself, that or someone spilled the wrong bucket…

When I got caught, years back, I was a teenager, just another homeless, nameless, illiterate kid plucked from the street because he's too big to fit in his old hidey holes, so, yeah, I'm a thief, a bad one, as evidenced by the fact I row a bloody boat.

I think I'm eighteen, or maybe I'm twenty… All I know is my mother left after my seventh birthday and about as many winters passed before my capture, then it's anyone's guess how long I was incarcerated…

First, they threw me in a mine to crawl through shafts, crawl down boreholes and up chimneys. One time, I squeezed in a hole that had a bend in it, you know, just a bloody elbow like I'd seen a thousand of, but this one was special somehow and I only managed to squeeze my upper body through before getting stuck at the hips.

I tried to backtrack, but my rib cage wouldn't fit either, so here I was, clutching a glowing fungus and screaming for help at the top of my lungs. I swear, it felt as if the walls were pressing against my chest harder at every scream and the air seemed to get rarer, to the point where it felt like I was breathing through some thick cloth. I kept hearing noises further down the tunnel, scratching and screeches, and was reminded of horror stories old prisoners would tell at night, about how a pack of Skeevers could pick your bones clean in minutes.

Needless to say, I panicked. Must have spent days, just lying in that tunnel, crying and yelling for help. None came. One day, after crying myself into some semblance of sleep, I woke up feeling completely calm. I was going to die and that didn't bother me anymore, it's not as if there's anything worth living for in my life, but as I came to accept that idea, I also came to loath it.

Anger makes one stupid, it is the manifestation of aggression, hatred is different, or, at least, it is the way I see it; hatred mirrors your inner convictions, it is a cold and constant thing that lets you think clearly yet gives you a reason to fight.

Sure, fighting rocks makes very little sense, but that calm state of mind gave me the insight to twist around until my hips did fit through, easy as that. I would have died because I just couldn't be bothered to stop and think for a second.

The rest of the story is quite obvious and my colleagues want to hear of Elsweyr, so I oblige.

"Trees in the cat's land are massive, unlike anywhere else, and tangled with each other," I recount, rowing at the beat of the drums, "you cannot simply axe them down, the top branches have to be cleared out first, then you must hack the trunk one part at a time, starting from the top and moving down…"

That one time, I worked on the tallest bastard I'd ever seen, it took me half a day to make it up, no kidding. I dragged myself up on branches, hurled myself at some, even, helped only by a pair of small pickaxes, tied to my wrists by leather straps.

"Why didn't you just, you know, follow trunk, pick axe your way up?" A large Nord points out at that point.

"Foliage is too thick, it's like a wall in places, but, yeah, most of the time, I just dragged up with them."

You can't climb such a colossus in one go either, I had to stop every so often to rub healing and stamina potions on my then numb arms.

I'd just finished recovering when it happened. New owner of the mill decided I didn't work fast enough and hired mages to, get this, blow the tree to manageable pieces. With me in it.

I'm quick on my feet, always been, and nimble, but that, that just went far beyond anything I'd ever faced; explosions all over, fire spreading all over like spilled ale.

The branch I'd been resting on was about horse wide, so I could keep my balance even as the mass of bark began lurching towards the mill. I ran, along the branch and up the trunk… No, I don't run on walls, it was just going down fast. Explosions were everywhere, splinters peppering my face and forearms like the hailstorm we had yesterday, I ducked under a massive piece of wood, vaulted over the stump of a branch and found myself floating over the mass of debris for a second as its fall sped up.

Mages had stopped throwing fire bolts at it by then, mostly because they had failed to cut the trunk in multiple pieces before it all began tilting and it was now descending straight on the mill, at the center of a massive clearing, caused by the shadow of the behemoth I rode on, shadow that now crept up on the ants scurrying around the building…

"You!" the Redguard slave driver roars through a hatch in the ceiling, from the top deck. Everyone glances around to figure out who he's talking to. Turns out I am the one.

"Yes, boss?" Might not be the smartest answer, but if he's speaking to me directly, it's either very good or very bad, either way, sarcasm won't change it.

The guard removes the rusted chain and I'm dragged up into the cold daylight of Solitude's harbor. We're not docked yet; an Empire warship pulled up to our left.

The Redguard is gone, practically cowering between crates. The man in charge here is an Imperial soldier, clad in black armor and carrying more blades than a hedgehog has spikes…

"Captain Maro," he introduces himself, extending a pale white hand, "the Penitus Occulatus has heard of you, Thief, and I was instructed to extend an offer on behalf of my father, Commander Maro…"

Solitude… A rock arch stretches overhead, far overhead, ending in a cliff on the city's side of the river. The opposite side, half a league away, is nothing but a beach that disappears among rocks and tundra.

Maro still offers his hand. I got a few rumors going about a master thief traveling on the ship, a man so skilled the Dark Brotherhood itself hired him on occasion, despite his young age. It's all fiction, but I heard guards speak of the Emperor's wedding in Solitude, or his cousin's, I don't know for sure, but it's scheduled for this week and they hoped we'd stay long enough to attend it…

The Dark Brotherhood is notorious for having killed quite a few Emperors and fear makes people believe stupid things, so here I am, shaking hands with a Penitus Occulatus agent.

"How may I help you, Captain Maro?" This man is stupid, I need to get out of here before someone with half a brain looks at my cover story and points out one of the massive flaws.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Decided to create a unique apparel for Cervantes, because I can, and have been thinking about skills in gameplay terms, if you were to recreate him at this point ingame, you'd have to increase Speech a bit under halfway, max out pickpocket, and keep lockpicking, one-handed, archery and most combat skills very low.**

Earlier, I said I was nameless and, though the whole mystery thing tempted me when the Penitus Occulatus officer asked how to call me, I figured having an identity would help me blend in, so I tell them my name is Gail Cervantes, Scribble.

Why Scribble? Because that's how other slaves used to call me, on account of my ability to read and write. Not sure when I learned, doesn't seem to have been one particular moment, I just kept finding discarded books and scrolls and spent all my free time decoding them, soon becoming one of the only literate around.

Odd as it may seem, this made me quite influential amongst the other convicts, at first because I could read letters from their families and answer them, then because I knew interesting stories and legends to recount around fires, and soon because I'd acquired the knowledge to manipulate others.

Just like I'm doing now, as I survey the map of Skyrim, warm and cozy within Castle Dour's stone walls.

Commander Maro and General Tullius are far too busy hating one another to question me. The Captain told them he'd analyzed the rumors, listened to me recounting my life story and decided that, yeah, I'm the one, no details beyond that, so there's nothing for them to pick apart looking for inconsistencies. I am their advisor, that's all they care about.

"This is my domain, General," Maro insists in the adjacent room, "let me handle the Brotherhood…"

I don't see Tullius, but the Legate stands in the doorway and she seems quite annoyed.

"I understand you want to find their hideout and burn it down, Maro," the General is not one to explain himself; he orders, others obey, but Maro is a special case, somehow, "but I can't afford to have Imperial troops chase ghosts around Skyrim right now, not with this Dragonborn siding with the Stormcloaks, I'm sorry, but your request is denied."

Sneaking in a guarded room is a lot simpler than it looks; I just hop out a window when the legate isn't looking, spot fissure in the stone large enough for my fingers to fit in and pull myself along the wall to the next window, naked feet slipping and scratching against the frozen stones while my fingers leave bits of skin behind every time I release a hand to move it further.

I used to do that whenever we stumbled on a cave; crossing to the opposite side with ropes attaché to my waist, the first step of building a bridge.

The window screeches when I pull it open, but Tullius' yelling covers that.

"…care about your pet thief, Maro! Throw him in a dungeon…"

"Cut him loose?" Both men spin ninety degrees to face me, hands on their swords.

The room has four windows on two walls; I got in from the one on the far right, they are in the opposite corner, between a massive stone desk and another window, both were standing sideway, they should have noticed me, but people get stupid when they're angry.

Tullius relaxes first and I swear there's a thin smile on his face for a few seconds. "And why would we want to let a master thief go free?" he asks, his false smugness and the smile I spotted earlier clearly stating that he knows my answer already.

Maro is harder to read.

"Because a lone thief is better than an assassin brotherhood, is it not?"

Maro finally speaks, moving a step ahead of the General, as if to show that this is his jurisdiction, "So, we set you free and you deal with the Dark Brotherhood, is that it?" He seems to think it's funny.

I shake my head and explain the plan to the two warriors.

Under all the fancy talk and exaggeration, the idea is really just 'they set me free and I find where the dark brotherhood is for them." It wouldn't have convinced them, but then I give them my word and Maro makes an excellent point:

"What is a thief's promise worth? Your very profession is to lie and deceive!"

"My profession is to acquire items." I reply, throwing him a neatly folded letter I picked from his son's hidden inner pocket. Pickpocketing is the one part of thievery I am actually skilled at; I got a lot of practice over the years, stealing from guards and selling to prisoners. "For whom or the nature of the item varies, but in the end, that is in no way less honorable than your profession. You take people's lives, I take their purses."

Maro inspects the seal on the letter and growls like a wounded animal, much to Tullius' delight. The Commander whispers something to the General, but Tullius refuses and Maro storms out like a spoiled child, denied his threat.

I didn't plan for things to go this way, but the look on the General's face tells me I'm not in any trouble.

He tries to get a good look at me, but my beard, freshly grown yet thick as a wolf's fur, covers much of my face. The rest is covered in dirt.

"You do not work for me." He announces, kicking a chest open to shuffle through its content. "If you are caught stealing, I will not help you. Find the Dark Brotherhood and stab this dagger on the map, out in the other room…" He hands out an Iron dagger so rusted it seems hairy, I walk across the room and take the thing, "You will find orders under the map, carry them out and, if your information on the assassins proves correct, there will be an Imperial pardon waiting for you, valid in any hold under our authority. If you do good work, you'll get more of these."

Imperial pardon… A way out of jail if I get caught.

"I don't get caught, general." I scoff, feigning offence. The man grins.

"Fair enough, what do you want in exchange for your services?"

"I will repay my debt, earn my freedom, then try to lead a normal life." I explain, mostly honest, as far as I know, yet feeling like I'm lying.

The General's expression grows somewhat solemn and his nod is sombre. "I heard that speech a hundred times, it's the first I've ever believed it… Good luck, Scribble."

Yeah yeah…

So, off I go in the city of Solitude, half naked, starving, dirty and without a Septim… Oh, and I've been locked away for maybe half a decade.

This is going to be so much fun!

First, let's get respectable; barely out of the tower, I spot a sign, Radiant Raiment.

It's the middle of the bloody day, but that only means guards won't be on the lookout and the owners will be busy with customers.

I climb a guard tower like anyone else, with the ladder, then leap across the gap to the closes rooftop, running straight up to the next as an elderly couple looks up from the street, wondering what that odd shadow belonged to.

I'm already gone though, and launch across the final gap, a dozen meters wide, to latch just under one of the shop's third floor windows.

The thing opens without a sound, the owners must spend a fortune to keep everything here tidy… As a matter of fact, I believe this floor is used for storage, yet everything is almost shining clean.

Walking silently really isn't my strong suit, I never really did learn how to sneak, but I try to move very slowly and avoid any creaking planks while I shop.

I have a style in mind, pale grey, white and red, nothing else, because these colors blend in well with the night without screaming 'Thief!' to every passer-by. Fortunately, there's a lot of fur here and Skyrim's animals are big fans of that palette…

First is the cloak, or cape or whatever it's called; pure white on the outside, vibrant red on the inside, it falls over the right side of the body, dripping only as far as the waist, but also has a hood and an ebony chain holds it in place.

The shirt is also pearl white, but sewn with grey treads. The collar, when popped up all the way, covers my whole neck, apparently meant to be laid flat on the chest instead. I let it up to flop around, because I like how it looks.

The pants, thick cave bear hides, fur pointed in for comfort and convenience, are a dark brown, but what can I do? Wear some ridiculous skirt like the locals?

Boots are black leather boots with thick soles. What did you expect?

For protection, I pick a belt-like thing, worn on the stomach and with an elaborate ebony carving in the center. It looks like a snarling wolf, if you can conceive such cliché… As for protecting my upper body, I go with a few plates of… What's that? Glass? Well, it's red and translucent, held in place with frostbite spider webs.

All in all, I look like a nobleman with military background who lost his personal hygiene instruments. A story already blooms in my head, one that would account for my sneaking around and acrobatic prowess; a former spy, unused to civilian life and awkward around civilised people, but having been well rewarded for his faithful services… Who I served will depend on the alignment of my interlocutor.

Now, off we go out the window!


End file.
